Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe

$22.99 AUD

Category: Australian

Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers that sugg ests that systems of food production and land management have been blatantly understated in modern retellings of early Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required. ...Show more

Curious Voyages - A Collection of Astoundingly True Tales by Andrew Murray (Illustrator)

$39.95 AUD

Category: Australian

Over thousands of yearsthe world was wide with wind-powered boats, one of man's mostbeautiful constructions, andsailors had to strugglein theage-old game of Man vsSea. This collection of tales isnot a history of sail, it's avoyage through centuries of curious sailing adventures.

The Palace Letters: The Queen, The Govenor General and the plot to dismiss Gough Whitlam. by Professor Jenny Hocking

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian

What role did the queen play in the governor-general Sir John Kerr's plans to dismiss prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1975, which unleashed one of the most divisive episodes in Australia's political history? And why weren't we told? Under the cover of being designated as private correspondence, the lett ers between the queen and the governor-general about the dismissal have been locked away for decades in the National Archives of Australia, and embargoed by the queen potentially forever. This ruse has furthered the fiction that the queen and the Palace had no warning of or role in Kerr's actions. In the face of this, Professor Jenny Hocking embarked on a four-year legal battle to force the Archives to release the letters. In 2015, she mounted a crowd-funded campaign, securing a stellar pro bono team that took her case all the way to the High Court of Australia. Now, drawing on never-before-published material from Kerr's archives and her submissions to the court, Hocking traces the collusion and deception behind the dismissal, and charts the private role of High Court judges, the queen's private secretary, and the leader of the opposition, Malcolm Fraser, in Kerr's actions, and the prior knowledge of the queen and Prince Charles. Hocking also reveals the obstruction, intrigue, and duplicity she faced, raising disturbing questions about the role of the National Archives in preventing access to its own historical material and in enforcing royal secrecy over its documents. ...Show more

Heroes Next Door by Johnson, Samuel & Hinton, Hilde

$24.99 AUD

Category: Australian

Moonlite: The Tragic Love Story of Captain Moonlite and the Bloody End of the Bushrangers by Garry Linnell

$34.99 AUD

Category: Australian

Charismatic, intelligent and handsome, George Scott is unlike any other bushranger. Born into a privileged life in famine-wracked Ireland, Scott's family loses its fortune and is forced to flee to New Zealand. There, Scott joins the local militia and fights as a soldier against the Maori in the brutal N ew Zealand wars. After recovering from a series of serious gunshot wounds, he sails to Australia and becomes a Lay Preacher, captivating churchgoers with his fiery and inspiring sermons. But Scott is also prone to bursts of madness. The local villagers back in Ireland often whispered that a 'wild drop' ran in the blood of the Scott family. One night he dons a mask in a small country town, arms himself with a gun and, dubbing himself Captain Moonlite, brazenly robs a bank before staging one of the country's most audacious jailbreaks. After falling in love with fellow prisoner James Nesbitt, a boyish petty criminal desperately searching for a father figure, Scott finds himself unable to shrug off his criminal past. Pursued and harassed by the police, he stages a dramatic siege and prepares for a final showdown with the law - and a macabre executioner without a nose. Meticulously researched and drawing on previously unpublished material, Moonlite is a brilliant work of non-fiction that reads like a novel. Told at a cracking pace, and based on many of the extensive letters Scott wrote from his death cell, Moonlite is set amid the violent and sexually-repressed era of Australia in the second half of the 19th century. With a cast of remarkable characters, it weaves together the extraordinary lives of our bushrangers and the desperation of a young nation eager to remove the stains of its convict past. But most of all, Moonlite is a tragic love story. For these are the dying days of the bushrangers and Captain Moonlite is about to make his last stand. ...Show more

Breaker Morant by Peter FitzSimons

$49.99 AUD

Category: Australian

The epic story of the Boer War and Harry 'Breaker' Morant: drover, horseman, bush poet - murderer or hero? Most Australians have heard of the Boer War of 1899 to 1902 and of Harry 'Breaker' Morant, a figure who rivals Ned Kelly as an archetypal Australian folk hero. Born in England and emigrating to Qu eensland in 1883 in his early twenties, Morant was a charming but reckless man who established a reputation as a rider, polo player and writer. He submitted ballads to The Bulletin that were published under the name 'The Breaker' and counted Banjo Paterson as a friend. When appeals were made for horsemen to serve in the war in South Africa, Morant joined up, first with the South Australian Mounted Rifles and then with a South African irregular unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers. In September 1901 Morant and two other Australians, Lieutenants Peter Handcock and George Witton, were arrested for the murder of Boer prisoners. Morant and Handcock were court-martialled and executed in February 1902 as the Boer War was in its closing stages, but the debate over their convictions continues to this day. Does Breaker Morant deserve his iconic status? Who was Harry Morant? What events and passions led him to a conflict that was essentially an Imperial war, played out on a distant continent under a foreign flag? Was he a scapegoat for British war crimes or a criminal himself? With his trademark brilliant command of story, Peter FitzSimons unravels the many myths and fictions that surround the life of Harry Morant. The truths FitzSimons uncovers about 'The Breaker' and the part he played in the Boer War are astonishing - and, in the hands of this master storyteller, make compelling reading.   ...Show more

Red Lead: The Legendary Australian Ship's Cat Who Survived the Sinking of HMAS Perth and the Thai-Burma Railway by Roland Perry

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian

The legendary Australian ship's cat who survived the sinking of HMAS Perth and the Thai-Burma Railway. Just after midnight on the 1st March 1942, Australia's most celebrated cruiser, HMAS Perth, was sunk by Japanese naval forces in the Sunda Strait off the coast of Java. Of the 681 men aboard, 328 survived the sinking and made it to shore - and one cat. Her name was Red Lead, and she was the ship's cat, beloved by the crew and by HMAS Perth's legendary captain Hec Waller. But surviving shell fire, torpedoes and the fierce currents of the Sunda Strait was only the start of the terrible trials Red Lead and the surviving crew were to face over the next three and a half years. From Java to Changi and then on the Thai-Burma Railway, Red Lead was to act as a companion, mascot and occasional hunter of food for a small group of sailors who made it their mission to keep her alive in some of the most hellish prison camps on earth.Red Lead's extraordinary story is one of courage, loyalty and love amidst battle, imprisonment and death, brought vividly to life by bestselling author Roland Perry.   ...Show more

Songlines - The Power and Promise by Margo Neale; Lynne Kelly

$19.99 AUD

Category: Australian | Series: First Knowledges Ser.

'Let this series begin the discussion.' - Bruce Pascoe 'An act of intellectual reconciliation.' - Lynette Russell.  Songlines are an archive for powerful knowledges that ensured Australia's many Indigenous cultures flourished for over 60,000 years. Much more than a navigational path in the cartogra phic sense, these vast and robust stores of information are encoded through song, story, dance, art and ceremony, rather than simply recorded in writing. Weaving deeply personal storytelling with extensive research on mnemonics, Songlines offers unique insights into Indigenous traditional knowledges, how they apply today and how they could help all peoples thrive into the future. This book invites readers to understand a remarkable way for storing knowledge in memory by adapting song, art, and most importantly, Country, into their lives.  About the series:The First Knowedges books are co-authored by Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers; the series is edited by Margo Neale, senior Indigenous curator at the National Museum of Australia.  ...Show more

Northside by Warren Kirk

$35.00 AUD

Category: Australian

From the photographer behind Westography and Suburbia. The past doesn't disappear. It leaves its traces everywhere. - Christos Tsiolkas From West Brunswick to Reservoir, Fitzroy to Hadfield, Warren Kirk turns his keen eye upon the streets, buildings, and inhabitants of Melbourne's northern suburbs, wh ich are as iconic as they are rapidly changing. Both a tribute to the things we remember and a reminder to look anew at the world around us, the photos in Northside are a triumph of craft from an artist who invites us to really see. ...Show more

Back Roads: The Scenic Route by Heather Ewart

$39.99 AUD

Category: Australian

 From the ABC Back Roads team, Australia's inspiring rural communities in splendid, vivid colour During the five years it has been appearing on our screens, ABC TV's Back Roads has taken us across Australia, through scorched deserts, along sapphire coasts, up breathtaking mountains and over gentle, rolling plains. It has shown us the rugged landscapes, the resilient communities and the extraordinary individuals who make a life in those areas outside the big cities. In this book, we capture in vivid colour some of our favourite people and places. Full of glorious photos that show us the spirit, purpose, difficulties and humour of outback life, this book is a tribute to the surprising characters, the rarely told stories and the sometimes beautiful, sometimes strange places that exist along the back roads of our extraordinary country. ...Show more

Australia in Focus by Steve Parish (Photographer)

$34.95 AUD

Category: Australian | Series: Australia in focus S.

Australia is an ancient island continent of contrasts and extremes, f rom lush tropical rainforests to the parched deserts of the inland. The continent's diversity of climates, landforms and habitats are home to an array of fauna and flora, many unique to Australia. At sixteen s ites, the natural and cu ltural heritage values are so outstanding that t hey have been inscribed on the World Heritage List. In these, and in nat ional parks and reserves, the country's natural treasures are protected and preserved. These such wonders of Australia are exquisitely captured in Australia in Focus: Australia. ...Show more

Under the Rainbow: The Life and Times of E. W. Cole by Richard Broinowski

$44.99 AUD

Category: Australian

Under the Rainbow is the life story of E.W. Cole, a colourful and much loved figure of 19th century Melbourne. Best remembered for his Funny Picture Books, his sense of the absurd and his marketing genius, his wonderful arcade was the first 'department store' in Melbourne, replete with a live orchestra, an aviary and monkeys alongside books, ornaments, art, curios and tearooms. But there was more to Cole than his merchandising prowess- he scandalised the clergy with his sacrilegious views about Christianity, campaigned passionately against the White Australia policy, and advocated education for all. Cole's journey from an impoverished sandwich seller on the streets of London to owner of one of the most memorable establishments of early Melbourne is remarkable. His passion for learning, insatiable curiosity, and enduring faith in the essential goodness of humanity make him a figure worth celebrating. More than 100 years after his death, Cole's story is a timely reminder that a little bit of goodness can go a long way. ...Show more